Mark Dixie
had a string of previous convictions for sex offences,
prior to the murder of Sally Ann Bowman.
Dixie was charged with indecently assaulting a woman
when he was just 16 and continued to get into trouble
with police throughout his life.

Police suspect he may have targeted other women while
living in Australia. He lived there from 1993 to 1999
working as a cook in bars and restaurants, eventually
being deported to England from Western Australia after
jumping out of a bush naked and making lewd suggestions
to a woman jogger.

After arriving back in England he lived in various parts
of south London, moving to Spain in 2002 and to
Amsterdam in 2006.
He has three sons, two with the girlfriend he followed
to Australia, and one with Stacey Nivet, with whom he
lived in Corydon in 2003.

Surrey Police arrested him in connection with a pub
brawl at his workplace, Ye Olde Six Bells in Horley, and
took a DNA swab. It took two weeks for Dixie's profile
to be added to the national DNA database, five hours
later he was arrested for murder.

His defence was that he found a young girl unconscious
in the street and he had sex with her, he denied that he
had anything to do with the murder.

Police believe Dixie, was responsible for an assault on
a 36-year-old woman about an hour before Miss Bowman was
killed.
It is believed that it was Dixie that attempted to
attack her and steal her mobile phone, when a taxi
driver came to the woman's aid, Dixie is thought to have
run about 1,300ft to a safe place - Blenheim Terrace,
the street in which he had lived with Miss Nivet.
Police are sure that it was there that he saw Miss
Bowman and her boyfriend Lewis Sproston having an
argument in a car, and lay in wait, attacking moments
after Mr Sproston left.

Local residents
reported hearing screams in the street about 4:30am.on the
morning of 25th September. She was found dead in a pool of
blood in her own driveway, she had been stabbed repeatedly.

During the three week trial, Mark Dixie denied the charge.
He claimed he found Miss Bowman dead after he had been on a
drink and drugs binge and had sex with her body

4th February 2008, Trial starts at The Old Bailey.

Dixie denies
murder, sticking to his story that he came across Sally Anne
lying in the street and decided to rape her, it was only
after the assault that he realised she was dead.

Forensic
scientist Julie-Ann Cornelius informed the jury that there
is a billion to one chance that the DNA found on Sally
Anne’s body is not from Dixie.

February 2008 - Dixie is found guilty of murder,
sentenced to serve a minimum of 34 years.